Sex and Marriage… by the Book

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This is the day when retail sucks a lot of money out of all us. Our kids need to recognize everyone in the class with a little paper ticket and maybe some candy so they all feel special. Adults in relationships have pressure to recognize their partners with gifts. Those not in relationships want to be in relationships so that they’re not alone.

And yes, some of those relationships involve sex. Sex is as critical to life for some as breathing, eating, and sleeping.

The media likes to sometimes paint a Judeo-Christian worldview on sex including heterosexual monogamy as puritanical, impossible, and older than the Stone Age. Even some married Christians paint marriage and the related sex as something less than what it should be — as evidenced by phrases like ball and chain, same old same old, and stuck in a rut.

However, I believe that what is painted is not the truth. It is also not based in Truth.

First, marriage and sex were created by God. He saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, so He made Eve to be a help to Adam. Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image. God has both masculine and feminine characteristics. In Jesus’ time, marriage required a biological male and a biological female (Mark 10:6–8, Matthew 19:4–6).

Marriage was indeed to be to the same person for the entire natural lifespan of the parties. Although there is Old Testament evidence of multiple wives (Jacob had Leah and Rachel as well as two of the female servants as concubines), by the time of Christ marriage was with just one person. Divorce was only permitted in response to adultery.

As a feminist, I would argue that abuse is also an acceptable grounds for divorce. Jesus just couldn’t address it in the culture of His day due to the social norms and attitudes. However, I cannot point to a place in Scripture where this is clearly identified.

God also designed sex and declared it good for use within marriage. Biblical marriage and sex had the following purposes:

• Unification
• Procreation
• Comfort
• Companionship
• Pleasure

Unification

Sex was designed to take two very different creatures and turn them into one unit. Per Genesis 2:24, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother, and is united to his wife, and the two become one flesh.” That one unit is to work cooperatively, sharing faith and household activities. They are to head in the same direction. That is why Christians are warned to only marry Christians in 2 Corinthians 6:14.

Procreation

God designed sex to result in new human life. Before the Flood, Genesis 1:28 commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth, and subdue it.

After the Flood, God commanded Noah and his sons to be fruitful and increase in number and to multiply on the earth and increase in number on it (Genesis 9:7).

Comfort

It can be argued that sex as comfort could be implied in the unification. However, there is a specific passage that clearly indicate marriage and the resulting sex were for comfort.

In Genesis 24, after Sarah’s death, Abraham begins a search for a wife for his son Isaac. He sends his servant and after a long series of incidences that are divinely arranged, the servant selects Rebekah and brings her back.

Genesis 24:66–67 detail that Rebekah became Isaac’s wife, and he was comforted on the death of his mother. While sex is not specifically mentioned, it is an assumed foregone conclusion that sex was part of the marriage ritual.

Companionship

God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, so God created Eve as a helpmate. Companionship is implied in that helpmate position.

Although not explicitly stated, it is implied once again that man should not be alone in Ecclesiastes 4:8–12. This passage compares and contrasts how a single person handles life versus how life is handled with a partner.

It can be argued until verse 12 that this passage is more about friendship than marriage. However, in verse 12 particularly part b, you have a very simple statement: A rope that has three parts wrapped together is hard to break (ICB).

This implicitly refers back to the basic tenet that any marriage required a man, a woman, and God to be strong and successful. The wrapping together goes to the unification aspect of sex and marriage.

Pleasure

I’ve argued in the past that the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon) is a Biblical book that borders on erotica. It is full of expressions of love between a bride and groom, and it is a very physical love invoking all the senses. I’m going to capture just a few of the verses that indicate pleasure in physical expressions of married love. Passages are from the Tree of Life Version, the New International Version, and the International Children’s Bible.

• 1:2–3 — Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth — for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you! (NIV)
• 2:8–9 — I hear my lover’s voice. He comes jumping across the mountains. He comes skipping over the hills! My lover is like a gazelle or a young deer. Look, he stands behind our wall. He stares in through the windows, looking through the blinds. (ICB)
• 4:11 — Your lips, my bride, drip honey from the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The scent of your garments is like the aroma of Lebanon. (TLV)
• 6:3 — I belong to my lover. And my lover belongs to me. He feeds among the lilies. (ICB)
• 7:6 — How beautiful you are and how pleasing, my love, with your delights! (NIV)
• 8:7 — Many waters cannot quench love, nor rivers wash it away. If one gave all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly despised. (TLV)